The game, in all of its violent glory, is spectacular. The newly added exo-suits - mechanical frames that let you jump three stories into the air or stem the loss of blood - allow for creativity in how you play, an effort move to give the player more choice and control in how they save the world. Advanced Warfare's reality is lathered in futuristic tech, like grenades that reveal the positions of enemies hiding behind walls or hone in on the baddies, like the bite-sized version of heat-seeking missiles. The moment is forgettable, plotted amidst futuristic globe-trotting from San Francisco to New Baghdad. But after a while, maybe with a well-placed grenade, you drop the bodies and progress to the next rally point where you dispatch a dozen more.

It's hard to line their heads in your scope, because the traffic dirties the frame and absorbs the brunt of your payload.

You take cover on one side of a busy highway, reload, then fire heavy weapons at enemies stationed on the median. An unexpected thing happens early in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the latest in the military shooter franchise in which the player kills human goons to the thumping rhythm of a Bruckheimer inspired story.